France’s health minister, Marisol Touraine (pictured), has said trial centres where drug addicts can safely inject their own drugs could open before the end of the year in a handful of French cities.
Legalised “shooting galleries” where addicts can inject heroin and other
drugs with sterile needles provided by medical professionals could soon open in
France, Health Minister Marisol Touraine has announced. “I hope that
experimental trials will be announced before the end of the year,” Touraine
told French BFM television on Sunday, adding that a handful of cities were
ready to test the new program. “I am reviewing the conditions under which this
can be implemented,” she added, saying that the issue of providing safe
premises for drug addicts should not be exploited by rivaling political groups.
But France’s conservative opposition UMP party has said it was against
such a test run. “Opening consumption rooms does not help fight against the
scourge of drugs, but rather trivializes drug use and legalises the use of the
hardest drugs at the taxpayer’s expense,” the party’s national secretary,
Camille Bedin, said in a statement to the press.
Last August, Socialist MP Jean-Marie Le Guen, who is also a deputy mayor
of Paris, called on the government to give the green light to so-called
shooting galleries as a response to the “worrying” increase of heroine use in
the French capital. "I would prefer that these destitute drug abusers
inject themselves in specialised rooms, rather than in the street or apartment
building stairwells, as is the case today. And that they are surrounded by
medical professionals,” Guen told Le Parisien daily this summer.
French public divided
French people are deeply divided over shooting galleries. According to
an opinion survey by French polling agency Ifop in September, 55 percent of
those questioned said they were against them, while 45 percent said they were
in favour. A similar poll by Ifop in August 2010 showed that 53 percent of
people supported testing drug consumption rooms in France and 47 percent were
against, suggesting that support for such an initiative was fading.
French President François Hollande said during his successful election
campaign that he would oversee the opening of France’s first shooting
galleries. The French NGO Doctors of the world, as well as other organizations,
have since called on Hollande to make good on his pledge. Shooting galleries
exist in a handful of European countries, including French neighbours
Switzerland and Germany.
According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), studies about the effectiveness of drug consumption rooms are limited but
generally point to positive outcomes: increased health care access and
treatment for drug users and reduced public drug use.
A study of a three-year heroin shooting galleries trial conducted in the
UK from 2006 to 2009 said the program resulted in less crime and street
dealing.
France24
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